Customer Reviews

The Complete Peanuts 1959-1960

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The fifth volume of the proposed 25 volume Complete Peanuts series finishes off the first decade of the strip by chronicling the years 1959 and 1960. This was about the time that many Peanuts fans (myself included) feel the strip really came into its own. Charles Schulz had established his main characters (Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder) with their own individual personalities and eccentricities. He had relegated the other characters (Patty, Violet, Pig Pen and Shermy) to occasional roles and basically stopped developing them (all eventually became afterthoughts in the strip).

In this volume, Schulz adds his first major character in several years by adding Charlie Brown's baby sister Sally, which ended up being a great decision as Sally later became the poster child for unrequited love (with Linus - you actually see the beginnings of it in this volume) and school anxiety. But even this early on, she makes her mark to the strip.

The surprise for me is that even though I was familiar with many more of the strips published in this volume than in any of the previous four volumes, there were probably 1/4th to 1/5th of the collection that I don't recall having read before in my life. That is, for me, what makes these volumes fun for me, the 40+ year old strips that are really new to me. I know that the percentage of strips I will have never seen will probably decrease with each new volume that is issued, just reading 700+ strips in a few days will bring back many great memories.

My only gripe in this volume is that the introduction by Whoopi Goldberg was not an essay as the previous volumes have had, but merely a transcript of an interview conducted with her. I think there are enough famous people who probably were affected by Schulz and his work who could make the effort to pen a few pages. Whoopi is a bright woman, but the interview left me with a feeling of "blahdom".

Anyway, another great volume in a great series!

Our patience is about to be paid off on May 19th. This will feature a quite transitional period in Peanuts. Snoopy will start resting on the top of his doghouse (he'll continue using his wild imagination, much to the chagrin of his master Charlie Brown). Blanket toting Linus has developed a crush on his teacher, Miss Othmar ("The teacher, the subject of schoolboy's fantasy...") and every Halloween awaits the arrival of the Great Pumpkin, hoping he'll choose the Van Pelts' pumpkin patch. Lucy finds a part-time job giving advice and "psychiatric help" for 5 cents (she seems to have a regular customer with Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown is about to be a brother and is ecstatic about it (he passes out chocolate cigars). His new baby sister's name is Sally. She starts out very cute and innocent, but will later become a consumate whiner (Charlie Brown taught her everything he knows!). She'll also develop a crush on Linus, who's too preoccupied with his crush on Miss Othmar. Meanwhile, Charlie Brown has a crush of his own on one little red-haired girl (we never get to see her in the cartoon strip, let alone know her name, but a few of the Charlie Brown specials would be a different story). And of course, Lucy is crazy about Schroeder, who's only crazy about Beethoven. Patty, who makes the cover of this Complete Peanuts, remains in the shadows of Lucy and, to a lesser extent, her friend Violet. Whoopi Goldberg has some poignant words in the introduction which I've read here on this website and she understands that part of the charm of Peanuts is that it tapped in on the things that make each of us sad or angry.

Comics (which appeared in Holt Rhinehart and Winston anthologies like But We Love You, Charlie Brown, Peanuts Every Sunday, Go Fly a Kite, Charlie Brown and It's a Dog's Life, Charlie Brown) include Charlie Brown trying hard to fly a kite, kick the football from Lucy and win a baseball game. Lucy insults Linus when Charlie Brown awaits Sally's arrival "I wanted to be the only child but you spoiled it for me!" Snoopy becomes a boxer fighting with a boxing glove on his nose. Charlie Brown is asked about his opinion about dogs. When he praises them, Snoopy embraces him and won't let go! Charlie Brown composes a typically wishy washy poem ("Somedays you think you know everything, somedays you don't think you know anything.."). Linus, Lucy and Charlie Brown look up in the sky and share what pictures the clouds seem to paint for each of them. Lucy and Linus see their father driving off and think he's going to the store, thus beg him for comic books and candy. Charlie Brown gets insulted by Violet and Patty and says "I'm sort of a spiritual scratching post for them to sharpen their claws!" Above Snoopy's doghouse is a big icicle. Charlie Brown tries to get the timid Snoopy away from the endangered doghouse with a pizza (and it works like a charm as soon as Snoopy smells the aroma!). Even the crabby Lucy shows a little compassion for a change as she observes: "Happiness is a warm puppy!"

To answer the last reviewer's question, I seriously doubt the Sunday cartoons are in color (though, that would be nice). Nevertheless, assuming you're as big a fan of Peanuts as I am, you're going to want a copy of this volume as soon as it comes out!

Charles Schulz's inexorable neurotic parade of children as adults continues in this great series by Fantagraphics (also known for reprinting such staples as Krazy Kat, Pogo, Dennis the Menace, and countless others). Somehow depicting adult miseries, disappointments, and conflicts with children greatly de-fangs the somewhat less than skippy happy subthemes that permeate this incredible strip. And it hasn't lost its bite some forty years later. If anything, this series has slowly revealed the true timelessness of "Peanuts".

Charlie Brown remains downright pitiable. No one likes him, no one ever did, and likely no one ever will. He demonstrates his "depressed stance" (October 19, 1960) after an onslaught of failure and ridicule. But he does manage to show up Lucy when she dons his shirt (February 22, 1959), though only in a self-deprecating manner. Any early signs of self-confidence (see Volume One) have nearly vanished by this point. But he never gives up even when faced with utter defeat (by this time the famous baseball games populated a lot of strip time). And then there's his struggles with inanimate objects. When he finally gets his kite into the air, it simply explodes (March 13, 1960).

Lucy stands fast in her deep dominating neuroses, but she's a little tamed down from her earlier maniacal appearances (see Volume Two). Right off the bat in January 1959 she takes great pride in pointing out the faults of others. Why? "I want to make this a better world for me to live in!" And she continues her futile quest for Schroeder; whose piano continues to symbolically separate them. What's better than unrequited love? Hopelessly futile unrequited love, of course. Schulz depicts this brilliantly.

Linus still faces the world with a lamb's innocence, only to get beaten down mercilessly by reality. This volume includes the first appearance of the Great Pumpkin (known by many from the Dolly Madison sponsored Halloween TV special that played in solid rotation for decades). But in 1960, Linus's attempt at a new popular mythology met with a bitter end.

Snoopy continues as the fantastic centerpiece of the strip. He dances, imitates others, begs for food, and remains a little surreal. He even gets downright existential. On October 24, 1959 he sits in his dog house wondering about life: "Sometimes I lay awake at night wondering why I was born... Why was I put on this earth? What am I doing here? ..And then suddenly it hits me... I haven't got the slightest idea!" This very strip defies the entire traditional notion that a comic strip should deliver yuks alone. It actually inspires deep thought as well as laughter.

And of course Charlie Brown's little sister Sally enters the scene. She's a baby in these strips, but she still falls hard for Linus (though he's not yet her "Sweet Baboo"). One depressing strip (August 31, 1960) shows her sighing behind a tree after overhearing Linus yell "I don't even LIKE little girls!" The very next strip shows her sobbing outright after giving Linus a good "Blah!" Sally's first major life lesson? Welcome to the club.

Some of the strips further demonstrate Schulz's great sense of the absurd: Snoopy's head bulges with thirty-three marshmallows (February 28, 1959); the "Mad Punter" mysteriously punts footballs while little children lay asleep (December 12 - December 23, 1960); Snoopy boxes Linus, Charlie Brown, and Lucy with a single boxing glove over his enormous nose (July 31, November 6, 13, and 20, 1960); Snoopy gets saved from a killer icicle by pizza (February 8 - 13, 1960).

By its tenth year "Peanuts" had its stride solidly set. This collection probably looks and feels familiar to anyone who grew up with the strip, because it remained more or less in this mode until its end in the year 2000. Most of the development of the main focal characters took place from 1950 to 1958 (of course some big additions are yet to come, like Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Franklin). This book contains the culmination of that slow evolution. From this point on the series will show "Peanuts" at its peak (though some argue that the quality dropped in the 1990s). And though many of the strips will look very familiar to longtime fans, many of them will not. Those small but immensely popular Fawcett paperbacks from the 1970s and 1980s apparently didn't include all of the strips. So familiarity and surprise sit side by side when reading this series.

"Peanuts" still remains one of the greatest comic strips ever printed. This series will simply reinforce that. And though the Sunday panels sadly don't appear in color, the effort likely remains much appreciated by the hordes of "Peanuts" fans out there. Continue on, Fantagraphics.

What is happiness? On April 25, 1960, Charles Schulz, through his character Lucy told us: Happiness is a warm puppy. This immortal sentence is just one of the things that appears in the fifth volume of The Complete Peanuts, which comprises the years 1959 and 1960. As in previous volumes, we see once again why Peanuts is considered by many to be the best comic strip ever.

In some sense, things have not changed from past volumes: Linus still has his blanket, Charlie Brown still can't fly a kite and Lucy is a champion fussbudget. On the other hand, things do move forward, albeit slowly. As original character Shermy (the first to ever speak in a Peanuts strip) becomes less significant, we get a new character with Charlie Brown's sister, Sally. Before she can even talk, she will have her heart broken by Linus, but don't worry, she'll recover fast.

Resiliency is the key to many of these characters, none more so than the strip's centerpiece, Charlie Brown. Constantly luckless and often ridiculed by his "friends" (only Linus, and occasionally Schroeder, are relatively consistent in being nice to him), Charlie Brown, despite his glumness is actually the eternal optimist. He never gives up on flying his kit or playing baseball or even his belief that one day, Lucy will actually allow him to kick that football.

Behind the deceptively simple drawing and the child characters (by this point in the strip, even the adult voices are gone), lies an often deep and sophisticated art, filled with wit and humanity. And like any piece of art that is great and immortal, it is timeless and as good now as ever, whether you're an adult or a child.

This is when Charlie Brown and Snoopy really got good. Great things happen in this book. Many firsts like Sally and the Great Pumpkin and many more cool stuff in this great book. Sally also falls in love with Linus and Linus falls in love with his teacher. I gave it four stars though because it is still early Peanuts and the later years were the best. I would give it five stars now but the computer won't let me. These are also the last years Patty and Violet as main characters. Although Violet will be main for the last time in 1961.

This issue gives us the first shots of Sally, plus some other developments. The baseball themes are being fleshed out (complete with mass-quitting of CB's team) and the Psychologist's Stand makes its debut.

What's most interesting is watching the beginning of Sally's crush on Linus. While the reprinted strips of before show Sally falling in love and Linus responding with revulsion, the new strips reveal some interesting tacks.

First, early on in the book (in a strip that hadn't seen the light of day in the reprints I had read over the years), Linus actually expresses an interest in Sally, wondering if she would be dateable at 17 (when he would be 22). One gets the idea that Schultz actually wanted to develop a situation where Linus was in love but his object was unrequited.

Later on in the book, Schultz hits gold: Sally falls, Linus is embarassed. While some of these strips are familiar, the section where Sally's heart breaks is new to my eyes. Towards the end of this book is a comic strip that is worth every penny: Sally sees Linus walk by and responds in a way that everyone has responded to a broken heart. Only Schultz could have reduced it to half a day's strip!

The fifth volume of "The Complete Peanuts" covers the years 1959 and 1960. During this period, the four main characters are Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus Van Pelt, and Snoopy. Schroeder, Violet, and Patti all have fewer appearances in the strip. Although, Schroeder has a clearly defined role which makes his character stand out more than the other two. Similarly, Pig Pen has a specific role while Shermy is a throw in character, despite the fact that both appear rarely. During this period, we have the first new character since the short-lived Charlotte Braun almost five years previously. Sally Brown is born on May 26th of 1959, we find out her name on June 2nd, and she makes her first appearance in the strip on August 23rd. We see her walking for the first time on August 22nd of the following year.

There are some classic firsts which appear in this book. One is the first strip to have Lucy's Psychiatrist stand, in which she offers the classic advice "Snap out of it!" to Charlie Brown, followed by "Five cents please." The Great Pumpkin is also mentioned for the first time in these strips. There are also some wonderful sequences here, including the impending destruction of Snoopy's doghouse to make way for a freeway bypass, Linus' crush on his teacher, Charlie Brown missing a baseball game to push Sally in her stroller, and many more.

As with the previous volumes in this series, the index is an amazing resource. If you want to look up the strips in which "The Mad Punter" appears, all you have to do is check the index. The Foreword in this edition was written by Whoppi Goldberg and she reflects on her interview of Charles M. Schultz, as well s the role "Peanuts" played in her own life. "Peanuts" was my favorite comic strip when I was young, and it is wonderful to read all these classic strips again. There are also many strips here which were never printed before, so it is a great pleasure to experience them for the first time.

It's a joy to watch the continuing development of the Peanuts characters through this, the fifth volume in the continuing series. You can safely ignore the 'introduction' - an interview with Whoopi Goldberg that casts little light on the Peanuts Gang or Charles Schulz. I have no axe to grind as far as Ms. Goldberg is concerned - she's a fine actress and an interesting person, but for a volume such as this, part of a complete collection, I'd expect a more relevant essay or perhaps some additional information on Mr. Schulz or his work.

I will certainly be buying the remainder of the series as they become available.

As they come out, I read and collect these volumes of the complete Peanuts, a comic strip that was so much a part of my childhood. Something of which I'm reminded every time I visit my grandmother, whose bathroom is filled with decades of Peanuts collectibles. I'm running out of superlatives to use to describe these volumes.

In any case, in this volume you'll find the birth of Sally & the beginnings of her crush on Linus, Charlie Brown coming so close to winning that baseball game and ending up the goat (as Linus says, "of all the Charlie Browns in the world, he's the Charlie Browniest."), Snoopy's ever-growing skills and "personalities." In addition, you'll find an interview with Whoopi Goldberg as the introduction to this volume.

All in all, a tremendous book. Read it.

A lot of people reviewing these Peanuts books quote the new things that happened in the year being covered. OK, OK, I'll give you a couple of things: Lucy opens her 5 cent Psychiatric Help stand, and it's the first year of the wait for the Great Pumpkin. This is the year that Charlie Brown gets a new little sister, Sally. Snoopy wants to go see her but decides to wait a few days until her eyes open. Is that enough to temp you?

What I like is that so many of the books in the past have been small little books that had a bit of Peanuts but I've always wondered how many strips I've missed. Well, with this book you don't miss any of the strips for 1959-1960. By 1959, the well known characters are all here. They are all developed into the ones we love. Many of the strips look familar as they've been reprinted over and over. But many have not, and the familar ones are seen here as the semi-continuing story that makes Peanuts so enduring.

I could continue praising, but I'm sure you get the drift. Here's everything from those two years -- 'nuff said.